Head First PHP & MySQL by Lynn Beighley and Michael Morrison

I am updating the Football Pool app that I built last year and want to make the database side of it more sophisticated and optimized so I searched Safari Books for some insight. After reading the overview of a handful of books I decided on Head First PHP & MySQL because it appeared to cover everything I was looking for.

The Head First series from O’Reilly tend to be a good blend of beginner level and intermediate level information. It is presented in a style that I think many will find helpful to the learning process with quizzes, crossword puzzles, and connect the phrases that go together to help reinforce what you have read. The series is much more than a "Dummies" or "24 hours" but less dry than book you may use to study for certification.

This book gave me almost all of the information I needed without too much trouble. I think there are many security issues that are not addressed that should be and the information about separating the zip code in a database schema did not make a lot of sense to me.

Overall I got what I expected from this book and will now read a book that is more focused on MySQL.

From the publisher:

If you’re ready to create web pages more complex than those you can build with HTML and CSS, Head First PHP & MySQL is the ultimate learning guide to building dynamic, database-driven websites using PHP and MySQL. Packed with real-world examples, this book teaches you all the essentials of server-side programming, from the fundamentals of PHP and MySQL coding to advanced topics such as form validation, session IDs, cookies, database queries and joins, file I/O operations, content management, and more.

I rate this book an 8 out of 10, I would have like more information about designing databases.